Staying Ahead of Scammers: Key Insights from the Latest BBB Scam Tracker Risk Report

According to the 2024 BBB Scam Tracker Risk Report, scammers are growing more sophisticated every year. Financial grooming scams in particular are a rising threat, with fraudsters taking time to build trust and emotional connections, sometimes over days, weeks, or even months, before moving in for the con.

Financial Grooming: A New Breed of High-Dollar Scams

The 2024 BBB Scam Tracker Risk Report emphasizes the riskiest types of scams targeting consumers, particularly investment scams involving cryptocurrency. Alarmingly, over 80% of people who encountered an investment/cryptocurrency scam reported a financial loss, with a median loss of $5,000, the second highest among all scam types.

Romance/friendship scams climbed to the third-riskiest spot in 2024, while featuring the highest median dollar loss of $6,099 per victim. Both scam types rely on financial grooming, where scammers take time to establish a sense of trust or an emotional bond before asking for money. These scams always start small, but once trust is established, the scammer coaxes the victim to invest more, often in fake cryptocurrency platforms.

Read more about romance scams in our two-part interview with Ayleen Charlotte from the Tinder Swindler documentary on Netflix:

Other Key Findings from the BBB

Median dollar losses due to scams have increased. The overall reported median dollar loss rose by 30% from 2023 to 2024, even though the percentage of people who lost money after encountering a scam fell by 14.6%.
Employment scams remain prevalent. Still at number two, employment scams account for 14% of all reported scams on the BBB’s Scam Tracker, with a median loss of $1,500. Younger adults (18–34) are particularly vulnerable, lured by flexible work-from-home “opportunities.”

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Older adults (People 65+) reported the highest median dollar loss ($160), closely followed by those aged 18–24 ($150).
Social media is a primary channel for scam-associated losses. Nearly 50% of social media–related scams began when a user responded to an advertisement or post. About 15% started with a direct message from the scammer.

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Credit cards were the most-reported payment method for monetary loss, followed by cryptocurrency payments, which rose from 3.0% in 2023 to 4.8% in 2024.
Nearly 30% of scam victims report an emotional and mental impact, with some of the most common reactions including anger, loss of trust, and anxiety.
Longer engagement = Higher risk. Victims who interacted with the scammer for more than one day were more likely to lose money.

Protecting Yourself Online With Bitdefender’s Security Solutions

While the statistics may be alarming, there are ways to protect yourself from these increasingly sophisticated scams. Bitdefender goes beyond classic antivirus protection with robust scam detection, chat protection, and anti-fraud detection.

Here are some free services you and your family can use to detect scams:

Bitdefender Scamio, our AI-powered scam detection service. You can send it any texts, messages, links, QR codes, or images, and it will analyze them to determine if they are part of a scam. Scamio is free and available on Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and your web browser. You can also help others stay safe by sharing Scamio with them in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Romania, Australia, and the UK.
Bitdefender Link Checker, another free service you can use to check links. It quickly analyzes URLs before you click, helping you determine if a site is safe or potentially harmful.

Additional technologies to fend off scams and fraud are included in our comprehensive security solutions.

Bitdefender Chat Protection, for example, offers continuous monitoring of fraudulent or malicious links and is incorporated into Bitdefender Mobile Security for Android via Bitdefender Scam Alert technology.

Chat Protection is used by consumers worldwide to monitor, detect, and stop link-based attacks. This includes threats delivered through messaging applications, notifications, and SMS text messages. If the warning is ignored, built-in web protection technologies prevent navigation to the malicious webpage. This multi-layer approach ensures you’re protected, even if you accidentally click a dangerous link.

Stay vigilant, stay informed, and stay protected with Bitdefender.